Crowd attends meeting at the Community Building

Area residents heard the final report from the Progressive Urban Management Associates, Thursday, Sept. 15, which is the next step in an economic development process that began earlier this year.

Commissioner Ron Cook opened the conversation and asked how they can move economic development forward.

"PUMA was here working with Live Well," he said. "The county hired them and PCDI came in and each one of the communities came in to help fund this and it's been very beneficial."

He noted that PUMA reached out to the community and the people enjoy living here and are dedicated to being here and they have a lot to entice people to live here.

"It took outside sources to point that out to get this plan and pull people together," he said. "Everybody was stepping up and is very interested in moving forward."

Cook said the only way to move forward is to all pull together and make it work.

"We are working in different directions to make this a good changeover from PCDI (Prowers County Development Inc.) to PEP (Prowers Economic Prosperity)," he said. "I think it is very positive."

He noted that all the commissioners support the new direction.

"We are going to budget $50,000 and put it into PEP and move forward with this project," he said.

PUMA President Brad Segal thanked the crowd for attending and made an economic development plan for Prowers County.

Advertisement

"There's a sense that Prowers had plans and advisers come in and talked about stuff to do," he said. "What really happened to make this different is how do we actually create a way to carry out economic development in the county."

The group was also charged with reinventing PCDI.

"There's a real concern that PCDI wasn't doing what it needed to do to promote the county and attract new business," Segal said.

He said the big news is that Prowers County is getting re-engaged in economic development.

"The private sector used to be engaged, but for a variety of reasons got disengaged," he said.

Segal said there was plenty of response to a survey the group handed out and most people like Prowers County because it is small town with a sense of community.

Associate Erin Lyng said detailed four things that came out in the planning process.

The first part of the plan is to scale up.

"Even if these concepts might start small they can grow over time," she said. "There are some businesses in the county that have started small and in some case have grown internationally."

PUMA was not looking for a "Silver Bullet" solution.

The next concept is to leverage local.

"Prowers County has a lot of unique assets and how do we tie those concepts to utilizing these assets," she said.

She said that businesses that utilize those assets are more likely to stay in town.

Next gen, she said, is to develop strategies that will attract the younger generation and keep them in Prowers County.

"Prowers is definitely not alone when it comes to retaining its younger population," Lyng said.

The charge is to give them a reason to stay in the county or attract the one who have left to return.

The fourth piece is to take initiative.

"This plan is just a plan without strong leadership to take it forward," she said.

She noted that it will take community support to move PEP forward.

The opportunities were organized into five categories.

"Manufacturing and distribution is one cluster," she said.

Other categories include agriculture, retail and restaurants, services, tourism and recreation.

Lyng said one opportunity in manufacturing is to attract complimentary businesses.

"Those that add value to existing industry in Prowers," she said.

She noted a packaging facility that can support a lot of the existing facilities.

How do we businesses to use local products (leverage local) and produce new markets for producers' goods," she said.

One idea born in the process, she said, was that Prowers County is in the middle of everywhere.

"It's very true," she said. "When you look at the highway access connecting from Mexico to Canada, Prowers is at that nexus to two highways."

She said agriculture is critical to the local economy and is "absolutely in the plan.

"We are looking for different opportunities to strengthen and grow that," she said.

There is an intersection between agriculture and technology, she said, and ag software is listed as one the top businesses for starting by young folks.

"Distribution, tying back to the middle of everywhere concept, you have the location, highway action, plus rail to rail opportunities," she said.

She said there may be an opportunity to maximize revenue in terms of the crop mix.

"Use your natural assets here," she said. "Prowers County, I believe, the first county in Colorado to have a wind farm in the country. You have a great wind asset."

She said the retail and restaurant bucket is all about filling the gaps.

"A couple of the things here that we heard were that restaurants are desired by the community and that was not meeting current demand," she said.

Retail goods are also missing.

"Clearly clothing is something where there is a lot of leakage (money leaving the county) and we're looking for opportunities to bring in more of this retail and food services back to Prowers," Lyng said.

She said health and medical is a key part of the services category.

"It's an economic anchor for Prowers and a priority of this plan," she said.

Lamar Community College, she said, is a huge asset.

"Not only for students who will be viably employable afterwards, but also a place where the workforce can be trained," she said.

Lyng said there is a need for outsource services that can be done anywhere, including Prowers County.

"There's a growth in that area as well," she said.

She noted that tourism has opportunities in hunting and different types of game.

"Small game is kind of a niche for young folks who are just maybe starting their hunting careers," she said. "Southeast Colorado has the largest concentration of North American Birds on the continent."

She said heritage is another growth opportunity.

"People want to go to places where they can experience the people and cultures of the past," she said.

Lyng said there is a desire for the plan to not be too Lamar-centric.

"It needs to be a county-wide effort and we need to be looking at opportunities for each of Prowers Communities," she said.

Certain initiatives might take place in certain locations.

She noted the plan needs to be specific and actionable.

"For each opportunity we'll look at specific targets as well as partners and planning sources," she said.

Segal said, moving forward, an opportunity fair a couple of times a year would benefit the county.

"We'd identify different opportunities within the county and invite, particularly the young population," he said.

This needs to be timed, he said, for when people come home.

"Maybe around a high school reunion or Christmastime," he said. "Have an opportunity fair, and maybe a not-so-supple appeal to some of the people who have moved away from the area to return."

Segal called it a true public private partnership.

"The private sector is engaged in economic development in Prowers County, joining with Lamar and other towns doing this together," he said.

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.